Comment: The following letter appeared in the Cyprus Mail of Nicosia on 9 January 2005.

Embracing the Republic of Cyprus

"The very thought that a mere 100,000 Turkish Cypriot people can form a sustainable independent economy while establishing and maintaining a modern infrastructure with a miniscule 40,000 odd working population of a predominantly agricultural nature is attainable only in the wishful dreams of their leader Rauf Denktash and his supporters."

Sir,
The crux of the Cyprus ‘problem’ is the refusal of the Turkish
Cypriots, who are outnumbered by seven to one, to accept their minority
status; needless to say that a minority community is simply one that is
fewer in numbers than the predominant community but is otherwise
democratically equal before all rights and responsibilities.

The ongoing Turkish Cypriot persistence for autonomy has been most
disruptive for the whole island and particularly catastrophic for the
Turkish Cypriot community itself.

The very thought that a mere 100,000 Turkish Cypriot people can
form a sustainable independent economy while establishing and
maintaining a modern infrastructure with a miniscule 40,000 odd working
population of a predominantly agricultural nature is attainable only in
the wishful dreams of their leader Rauf Denktash and his supporters.

If left to their own devices, the Turkish Cypriot community is
destined for financial extinction with mathematical accuracy. The false
hope of independence and autonomy is fed by Turkey’s 30-year campaign of
huge financial aid and political interference that manufactures and
sustains Turkish Cypriot leaders the likes of Rauf Denktash, who is
hell-bent on keeping the two Cypriot communities apart at all costs to
serve Turkey’s expansionistic interests.

Thanks to Rauf Denktash’s doctrines, the Turkish Cypriot community
has been living a dream of false hope that once official business
partnerships are established with the rest of the world, upon
“statehood” and recognition, their financial troubles will be over. The
sad truth is that the Turkish Cypriot community already has easy access
to a 70 million strong Turkish-speaking market just 40 miles north; the
“motherland” itself, and yet the Turkish Cypriots are still unable to
survive without considerable annual Turkish aid.

Yet despite these daunting facts and decades of false promises,
the Denktash lobby continues to hold the Turkish Cypriot community
captive, in the past, under third world standards in a setup that can
only be described as a chiefdom “republic”.

On the other side of the coin, we have the Republic of Cyprus,
which, akin to the West, exercises great tolerance to religious
diversity, offers financial prosperity through its negative unemployment
rate and strong economy, and boasts a range of modern social services
for all its citizens. All the facts point that it would be in every
Turkish Cypriot’s interest to embrace the Republic of Cyprus."